I have my car back!
Sitting pretty in the afternoon sunOK, let's review. Around October 2019 the car was ticking over 200,000km and was due a timeing belt and water pump job. I'd just gotten the Subaru Liberty as a daily driver and figured I could tackle the service job myself, and one or two other things at the same time, and not worry about an extended down time. I got the job done with a couple of hiccups, it took longer than expected but the car started and ran! A short time later I found the car was spilling oil at an alarming rate. That was 18 months ago and the last time I drove the car until this past Thursday!
I couldn't solve the oil leak, I feared it was turbo related. Ever since reading Lokiel's thread around the time I got my car I always knew an EFR upgrade was in my future. I had started stock piling parts about 2 years ago, starting with the Kraken manifold, dump and exhaust. Then last year I picked up the turbo and a few other bits and started bugging Daffy's Wunder-mechanic Darren to fit me in to do the install. I thought if the oil problem was the turbo, let's just get on and replace the thing! But Lokiel's thread showed me that there were a few issues I wasn't prepared to tackle, so I wanted a professional, and we've seen how good Daffy's car is!
Late last year, Darren gave me the call I'd been waiting on and I booked a tow truck, loaded all the bits into the back of the Subaru and went down to his workshop on the Gold Coast.
6 months later, and here we are! It took longer than expected, but that's often the way with these things. The work looks fantastic, Darren's reputation is well earned.
Darren installed:
The Kraken setup and the EFR6258
Flyin Miata coolant re-route
Mazda "Square Top" intake (from VVT cars)
Skunk2 Throttle Body
Fab9 Stage 1 front mount intercooler
Custom fabricated intercooler pipes
He also:
Ceramic coated the manifold, turbine housing and dump pipe
Re-purposed the Nitro Dann air intake box and catch can
Fixed the leaky AC
Re-routed AC pipes to make way for the dump pipe
Sorted general fitment issues that are always necessary on cars such as this
And various odds and ends
Showing off Darren's good works at the All Jap pre-meetSince the leak was found in early 2020 and the car was grounded, I've continued to make mods. It's a disease. So there were a number of changes that I have detailed earlier in this thread but I hadn't yet experienced on the car until yesterday!
Flat door cards
Focal Speakers
ATI damper and 36-2 trigger wheel
FlowForce LS Coils
Flyin Miata Cross-flow Radiator
A new shorty antena
Guardian Designs 330mm steering wheel
So, A LOT has changed!
First, I'm going to go over the interior changes. I realise the turbo is probably the most interesting change, but I've put a lot of energy into this interior!
The smaller steering wheel and the flat door cards give me a lot of room. I can move my legs freely, heel and toe, raise my throttle leg to give it a rest (it used to be wedged in tight). There' no arm rest anymore, but I haven't found that to be an issue, occasionally I'll go to put my elbow on the rest, realise it's not there and just drop my hand into my lap. The door upper pads, from an NA do squeak and rub against the NB dash, I'll try to apply some sort of grease or cream to help that, but it might be something I have to live with.
The steering feel is heavier now, 330mm vs 365mm of the OEM wheel. It's not super heavy by any means, but there's now some weight to it. I don't think I'd want to combine this wheel with de-powered steering. The wheel feels great in the hand, the leather is soft, the rim is thick and the hands fall to the thumb grips. Because of my lowered seating position I can see the guages perfectly well, nothing is cut off. It was an expensive purchase to be sure, but worth it. Something is up with my indicators, indicating right isn't clicking into place properly - but I suspect this is to do with the replaced clockspring from a little while ago, or my installation while putting it in.
The speakers are excellent. I need to post up on the speaker thread, give that a bump because the information there really guided me and I'm very happy with the sound. I got a pair of Focal splits, and on a cruise home the other day I put a CD on and the detail coming from the speakers was amazing! Still running the stock head unit, but I am looking to upgrade that fairly soon.
Right - now for the engine bay.
The LS coils, ATI damper and 36-2 wheel are working wonderfully. The engine starts up much faster than before, and idles much more smoothly. The damper has taken a lot of the shake out of the old paint mixer!
The cooling system is working really well. This is probably mostly down to the FM crossflow rad, the re-route really just better distributes coolant, and I'm still using the stock fans. I have my fans set to come on at 94* and turn off at 90*, the temp will climb steadily in stop and go traffic, but drop very quickly once the fans come on. I think I've seen a peak of 96*, once the fans turn off it continues to cool (more likely the sensor is delayed?) to about 87*. On a run on Glorious the coolant was holding steady and cool. I'll have to wait for summer to really apraise it's effectiveness but so far so good.
Finally, the turbo!
The turbo feels good and makes excellent "Darth Vader" noises. It's much louder than the old IHI, and it's a lot of fun hearing the whooshing and blowing! The exhaust is about perfect too for my tastes too, it's noticable but not loud. Let's face it, the engine in these cars is not a master peice, no need for it to yell loudly. It just needs to flow well, and a little noise is nice.
Issues? I've had a couple - but I also expected them with a build like this, so many things changed at once. But nothing catestrophic. On the way home from the workshop on the highway I noticed my coolant temps fluctuating a lot, getting warmer than I'd expect but not to the point of overheating. When I got home and things cooled down I found the overflow empty, and when I popped the rad cap the rad wasn't full. I checked around for leaks but found none, I just don't think the system was burped propperly before leaving. I topped it up with distilled water and haven't had any more trouble.
The one I'm still working on is overboost. The car has a 5psi spring in the Turbosmart wastegate actuator, with a little pre-load I was expecting to hit 6-7psi so set my boost cut to 8psi. I hit that easily. So thinking the turbo simply can't flow that little I bumped the cut to 10psi, and still hit that easily. I checked my settings, boost control is off, and I even bypassed the solenoid so the wastegate saw the boost directly, and still hitting the cut.
Boost soleniod bypassedLokiel (and others who read up on these things) already know the answer.
This should be a smooth fit!The wastegate rod isn't aligned properly. The EFRs are very very very sensitive to the wastegate actuator's rod lining up well with the flapper, if you have to angle or bend the rod to get it on the flapper, the actuator will bind and the wastegate won't open fully. I'm in the process of correcting this now, hopefully I can test it out this weekend and report a steady <10psi boost. Then I can begin tuning EBC, and also properly tune the fuel for the higher RPM cells.
OK, that'll do for now, there's enough here I think. Thanks for reading! Let me know if there are any questions on things I've missed.
Rolling on to the field with Daffy at the official All Jap day
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